Intel CTO, Justin Rattner, Steps Down, No Replacement Named

In a somewhat unexpected move, Intel’s CTO and Director of Intel Labs, Justin Rattner, today stepped down from his post. This marks the second major management shakeup within the company in the past year, with the last CEO only recently stepping down in favor of Brian Krzanich who has only been CEO for a few months.

When Otellini announced his stepping down at CEO, he gave the board quite a bit of time to find a replacement for himself. However, it still took them quite a long time to actually find a successor to Otellini. I have a feeling that they will eventually end up having to search long and hard to replace Rattner as well.

From Intel’s official PR release, they state that Justin Rattner has approached the mandatory 65 year old retirement age for executives, however, he will simultaneously be addressing ‘family issues’ and will come back to the company in a reduced capacity once those are resolved. This is the most bizarre part of Intel’s PR statement because it doesn’t quite make sense that they would talk about him hitting the mandatory 65 year old ‘retirement’ age if the reason why he was leaving had to do with family issues. Here’s a direct quote, "Justin?s transition is required under Intel?s corporate bylaws which state that Intel employees may not serve as corporate officers past the age of 65. Rattner will take a personal leave immediately to deal with a pressing family matter and will return to Intel at a later date in a role to be determined. Intel Labs will report to Intel President Renée James until further decisions related to its leadership are made."

If Justin’s replacement is required under corporate bylaws, then why don’t they already have a replacement for him? Either way, we wish the best for the bionic ear-wearing former-CTO and that Intel can swiftly find a replacement for him to make sure that Intel can continue to fire on all cylinders and to bring some heat to the ARM mobile market.